The Games (Australian TV series)

The Games (1998–2000) was an Australian mockumentary television series about the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The series was originally broadcast on the ABC and had two seasons of 13 episodes each, the first in 1998 and the second in 2000.

John Clarke: [To President Clinton on the telephone] Sorry to do this to you again, I'll be with you as soon as possible.

Bryan Dawe: John, this contingency here is supposed to be in the bank account according to your figures.

John Clarke: You're still here.

Bryan Dawe: It's not in the bank account!

John Clarke: Bryan, look, I don't want to worry you. I've got Juan Antonio Samaranch coming here in half an hour to see a swimming pool. We haven't even finished stage 1 on!

Bryan Dawe: Appreciate that.

John Clarke: We've finished the water! I can show him the water! I've got the Premier out there now having a cup of coffee, I hope he doesn't drop it - he'll set fire to himself Bryan! I've got a very nice Mr Clinton on the blower here, I've not even had time to speak to him! I haven't got time to go pushme-pullyou with all this budgetary crap!

John Clarke: Are you serious? No-one is going to see the final of the 1500 metres? It's one of the most popular events we've got going! I mean, the only people not watching it, Gina, will be people who like watching synchonised drowning on channel six million and eight!

Bryan Dawe: Eighty years of age. We would have had him kneecapped at forty.

John Clarke: Ah, one message! This is the Olympics and we have one message. The rest of the world has conducted its business while we slept and we have one message. Let's hear it world. How can we help you?

Voice on answering machine: ... so if you could call back on that number at your earliest convenience Mr Clarke, I would be very grateful.

John Clarke: That's not right. That's wrong. That's not that guy's position. He is not head of the Athletics Federation. Sorry, he isn't. That is completely wrong. Check your facts! He's not Portuguese, he's Polish ... and you, sir, are a bloody idiot.

Video voiceover: No wucking furries.

Gina Riley: What couldn't you do without?

John Clarke: My arse.

John Clarke: Tobacco sponsorship?

Bryan Dawe: Yes.

John Clarke: Well done Bryan. That really is terrific news. Now here's a number. I want to see if you can get some more. You ring that. That's the Cambodian Embassy. They'll have a number for the estate of the late Pol Pot. See if you can get them to tip some money into a humanitarian sponsorship of some kind. You seem to be good at it.

John Clarke: The Formula One Grand Prix is currently less interesting than the video game that's based on it. The cars go around in a circle, they get Murray Walker off the ceiling, the game itself is a procession. You can't get past - the car in front at the beginning wins the race. The whole thing is decided by who's going to have a pit-stop. They're the fastest cars on Earth and the key element here, Bryan, is not racing. It's parking!

John Clarke: I do. It's a good thing we're not expected to run a major sporting event in this city. It could well be complete mayhem.

John Clarke: Mr Wilson.

Jasmine Holt: [Interrupting]Now John ...

John Clarke: Or Jasmine, of course. That's the other obvious alternative.

John Clarke: I don't understand then, Mr Wilson, why in the construction of a 100-metre track you would want to depart too radically from the constraints laid down for us by the conventional calibration of distance.

John Clarke: Mr Wilson. Do you know who is the current 100 metres all-comers Australian record holder?

Mr Wilson: Can I guess?

John Clarke: There's not much point in guessing.

Mr Wilson: Is he an African American?

John Clarke: He's not an African American, no.

Mr Wilson: Is he that Canadian from Jamaica?

John Clarke: No, he's not a Canadian from Jamaica.

Mr Wilson: I give up.

John Clarke: The 100-metre record in this country, Mr Wilson, is currently held by Bryan.

John Clarke: This is just one taken at random. This is actually about the country, Australia. What is the population of Australia, and what are its main industries?

Gina Riley: Well, the population is about 17 million.

John Clarke: Yes, and we don't have any industries as such.

[Answering questions sent by email]

Gina Riley: I have another question here: what is the separation of powers?

John Clarke: Ah, well this is a constitutional question. The separation of powers is a constitutional division of the two entities in which power is vested in Australia: Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch. If Mr Packer wants cricket, Mr Murdoch would be given Telecoms. If Mr Murdoch wants rugby league, of course Mr Packer would be given the cotton industry.

[Giving a live press conference over the internet]

John Clarke: If you would like us to answer any questions on the internet - perhaps we could settle an argument, or maybe you'd like to make a booking, or perhaps you're just curious - this is how you get in touch with us: 'dot com'.

Bryan Dawe: What's 'dot com', John?

John Clarke: What is 'dot com'? I was told you 'dot com' - you put the mouse through the window in the 'dot com'.

Bryan Dawe: No, no ... no.

John Clarke: And you do it, and it comes through the service station. And you choose the search motor, and there's a drop-down dinner.

John Clarke: I don’t think there’s a serious problem with Sydney water. I mean, I drink it. Unless you mean the incident the other night when somebody emptied the Olympic pool by mistake and killed a couple of hundred species of fish up in the Ryde area but that’s a once-er, that’s not going to happen again.

John Clarke: We were just discussing who might attend the dinner with the delegate.

Nicholas Bell: He’s dead.

John Clarke: I beg your pardon?

Nicholas Bell: He was found dead in his hotel room at four o’clock this morning.

John Clarke: How dead?

Nicholas Bell: Well, completely dead.

Jasmine Holt: Look, look, Bryan, Bryan. If KFC gets, say, Carl Lewis to endorse their product the potential for confusion in the marketplace is absolutely enormous.

Bryan Dawe: Oh come on, how? What are they going to do? Get Carl Lewis to hold up a chicken and say "This is a hamburger"?

John Clarke: I don’t know that this is what we do, is it? Sequester the dead?

Gina Riley: They want to put the track, the skeet shooting, the badminton and the fencing all at the main venue.

John Clarke: Out here?

Gina Riley: Yes.

John Clarke: How are they going to do that?

Gina Riley: They’re going to make them night events. They’re going to put them on after everything else is finished.

John Clarke: But people will get shot, won’t they?

Gina Riley: Well, they say they’re going to fire above their heads.

John Clarke: It’s never been a terribly convincing defence. "We were firing above their heads, Your Honour, and then we noticed large numbers of deceased persons."

Gina Riley: He was particularly appalled – please get this down – that the games seemed to be turned into a benefit for television; a notoriously greedy and selfish medium that is obsessed with money and sensation, and is often run by morons who wouldn’t know if their arses were on fire unless the ratings told them so!

[Attempting to explain the changes to the swimming programme to the audience]:

Interviewer: Okay, well tell me about the major changes to the swimming programme.

John Clarke: Well, what's currently proposed is the, what I believe I've just given you a copy of, which is that all heats will be run in the morning, as they normally are... slight change insofar as heats will be worked out on the best of three, times will obviously count. Perhaps Gina knows a little bit more about this than I do?

Gina Riley: Thank you John. Yes, each swimmer will swim three heats in each event, the swimmer's slowest heat time will then be dropped, the other two times will then be multiplied by three over two then divided by three to give an aggregate time and the fastest 32 times will then move on to the next round.

John Clarke: Yes, and then there's a "wild card" entry, for those who are the top place getters in each of the races in which the fastest three times were recorded, and then there'll be quarter-finals, and then there'll be finals, and then there'll be repechages.

Interviewer: Remind me, what is a repechage?

John Clarke: After the final sequence of heats, competitors who have not been successful go back into a stage of three previous heats in which there is a separate sequence of semi-finals - quarter-finals and semi-finals - and so people are given another chance, really. And then there'll be, obviously, a preliminary final, and then a quarter-final, semi-final, and then the rounds of three heats subsequent to the repechages, and the quarter-finals and semi-finals in respect of those, and that'll fill the eighth lane - the other seven lanes being filled as I've described - and, er, so, you know, that's fairly simple.

Nicholas Bell: Look, they're coming from somewhere up in the sticks, they just want to present their proposal for the opening ceremony, alright?

Bryan Dawe: Nicholas, you've just finished telling me that the contract for the opening ceremony has been awarded to a German company.

John Clarke: It’s Friday afternoon and we’ve got three brand new sporting venues opening in Sydney on Sunday. We should be down there preparing for that but we are not. What are we doing this weekend instead?

Gina Riley: I would rather sit at home with a pencil in my eye than do that again.

Nicholas Bell: All I’m saying is that a problem that up until 30 seconds ago was the Minister’s problem is now your problem. [Walks off]

John Clarke: [Shouting after him] And the minister will be confronting this issue, will he, by his usual method of being photographed in a hard-hat pointing at a concrete mixer?

John Clarke: I don’t think that presents a major problem. If the gold medals aren’t gold, we shouldn’t call them gold. Call them the yellow medal.

Gina Riley: It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it? "Triple yellow medallist Dawn Fraser."

John Clarke: Well, no, it lacks mystique. And I can’t imagine that the winner of the grey medal and the winner of the brown medal will be all that disappointed that they didn’t get up for the yellow.

John Clarke: It’s just that right at the moment I’m not in the right frame of mind to deal with make-believe problems. We have real problems.

John Clarke: Everything the IOC says is code for something else. If, for example, they describe the function that Bryan persists in calling "the Atlantic Olympics" as exceptional, that’s the equivalent of saying "hand me a twig, please, I’d like to scrape the Atlantic Olympics off the sole of my shoe."

John Clarke: "Finishing touches" is code for "we've bought the concrete."

John Clarke: Really? She went out with an Albanian delegation. What does that mean?

Bryan Dawe: She set fire to one of their wigs.

Bryan Dawe: What happened in Melbourne? What legacy did they have?

John Clarke: As a result of the Olympics?

Bryan Dawe: Yes.

John Clarke: Slums, by and large. They built a whole lot of accommodation out at West Heidelberg. It’s still there, I think. You still hear it mentioned from time to time. "Police later found the vehicle abandoned at West Heidelberg." "Police are anxious to speak to the population of West Heidelberg."

John Clarke: Can you get Ian Barrundi to come?

Bryan Dawe: Ian Barrundi? Yes.

John Clarke: Get him to come.

Bryan Dawe: We’d need a weight lifter.

John Clarke: Well, we need a recently retired, top flight international athlete.

Bryan Dawe: Who’s as thick as pig shit.

John Clarke: He’s very good in a meeting, Bryan. He’s excellent in a meeting.

Bryan Dawe: He knows nothing about corporate law and doesn’t know what the Minister’s deal is.

John Clarke: The Americans don’t know that.

Bryan Dawe: It’ll take me an hour and a half to brief him.

John Clarke: He doesn’t need to say anything. Go and ring him. He doesn’t need to say anything. I just want him to be there. Tell him to dress for church and be in attendance.

William T. Eyck: So who is the Chief Executive?

John Clarke: At the moment?

William T. Eyck: What do you mean at the moment? How many have you had?

John Clarke: I’m speaking from memory... about four, so far.

William T. Eyck: What happened to the other ones?

John Clarke: Some of them are spending a little bit more time with their families.

John Clarke: Have you booked the satellite for the CNN thing next week?

Gina Riley: Got a call in.

John Clarke: Did you fax Juan Antonio’s itinerary out here next week…?

Gina Riley: As we speak.

John Clarke: …because there’s a message on the machine that they haven’t got it.

Gina Riley: Bloody hell.

John Clarke: Do you think perhaps we could fax it again? You do know they should actually have had it yesterday?

Gina Riley: I’ll take that on board, John.

John Clarke: [Quietly] Gina, have you actually done any of these things at all?

Gina Riley: No, I haven’t.

Nicholas Bell: Thank you. John, can I ask what work has been done up to this stage by your people on this question? You see, what I am thinking is there maybe a detailed study already undertaken on the Los Angeles public transport system and how it worked for them at the ’84 Games. That sort of thing would give us a lot of information. Is that available at all?

Bryan Dawe: He’s got a very soft side, John. You don’t see it very often but it’s there. I remember we were once in Milan and we were sitting out on this fifteenth-century balcony. We were drinking a local liqueur called ‘Mist of Heaven’ and all of a sudden John just started to weep. I don’t think he was unhappy. I mean, we’d drunk about three bottles of the stuff and the weather was very beautiful and we were just sitting out there looking over the harbour.

[John is being interviewed by Liz Jackson]:

John Clarke: Well, I’ve always responded pretty well to a challenge. I can remember when I was a kid once playing cricket with my cousins on the lawn at the back of my grandmother’s place and somebody said, ‘I bet you can’t put a ball on the roof of that big tool shed at the bottom of the garden’, and I can still remember thinking, "You reckon I can’t do that, don’t you?"

Bryan Dawe: Yes, he had some disappointments, but John could have been a world-class runner. No doubt about that. He wasn’t. But he could have been.

Liz Jackson: [Voice-over] Further revelations followed a few months later, and in November of that year, fifteen ONAN committee members were cashiered when they were found to have received an estimated $4 million worth of jewellery from a man who gave his name as Mr Tabernacle Choir.

[John is being interviewed by Liz Jackson]:

John Clarke:I felt at this stage Allan Ronaldson still deserved a chance to clear his name. There was still some doubt. Don’t forget that Allan had worked very, very hard for a very, very long time for the movement. I thought that there was still a chance, in my mind, that all of this could turn out to have been a mistake.

Liz Jackson: [Off-camera] Did you ever see him with a yacht?

John Clarke: No, categorically, I never once saw Allan with a yacht. I did see him with a light aircraft once, at a meeting.

Liz Jackson: [Off-camera] And where did he get that from?

John Clarke: He told me he’d won that in a card game.

John Clarke: Allan Ronaldson got a very fair hearing. I think if you ask, even Allan Ronaldson will say he got a very fair hearing over this matter.

[Cut to Allan Ronaldson, interviewed in an airport lounge]:

Allan Ronaldson: [Laughing] No, he didn’t actually say that, did he?

[John is being interviewed by Liz Jackson]:

Liz Jackson: [Off-camera] How do you feel when you get personal criticism? Does it hurt?

John Clarke: Personal criticism? I don’t pay much attention to personal criticism, to be honest. Who said something?

Liz Jackson: [Off-camera] Well, it has been said that you’re arrogant, for example, hasn’t it?

John Clarke: Yes, I have regrets, I suppose. I’d like, for example, to be able to get out of the office a little bit more and perhaps spend some time with some of the charity organisations that I’m involved with.

Gina Riley: Not bad if you don’t mind them being called Big Mac, Fordie and Microsofty

John Clarke: In this very room, we’ve probably got a microcosm of Australia’s fabulous cultural diversity. [To Asian-looking staff member] Where, for example, do you come from?

Staff Member: Who, me? Collaroy.

John Clarke: No, I mean where are your parents from?

Staff Member: Oh, they’re from Petersham.

John Clarke: What about your grandparents, then? Where are your grandparents from?

Staff Member: Well, they had a market garden up in Maitland.

John Clarke: Yes, well, good on them. My point is the cultural diversity. I mean, we all come from somewhere. In my own case, for example, probably principally Ireland and Scotland in the 1860s. What about you?

Staff Member: Oh, well, they came up from Melbourne in about 1855.

John Clarke: Good on them.

Staff Member: From the Victorian goldfields.

John Clarke: Yes, very good. Yes, well, the cultural point is probably well made.

John Clarke: Yes, we are embarked upon what is undoubtedly the greatest event ever mounted in Australia.

Bryan Dawe: Of any kind.

John Clarke: Yes, Bryan, yes, probably the greatest event ever mounted in any Australia of any kind.

Bryan Dawe: Can I just handle that? Can I just say that the ticketing system that we implemented for these games is absolutely superb? If it had come off we would have been national heroes. I mean, it was a brilliant idea.

[The room erupts in laughter]:

Staff Member: What went wrong?

Bryan Dawe: We got caught.

John Clarke: Listen. I mean, before you get abusive, shagnasty, you want to consider organising something of the magnitude of these games. I mean, this a serious undertaking. This isn’t a school gala day we’re organising here.

[Reading from an information pack issued to all members of staff]:

John Clarke: Australia is a bi-cameral, monarchical federation run by the states and with the right of appeal to the media. The capital is Canberra, obviously. The principal industries in this country are coal and the Olympics. If a visitor comments on the high price of accommodation or Olympic tickets do point out that due to strong management at the highest level, the Australian dollar is now roughly equivalent to the American dime. So they’re not getting a bad deal. The reason prices might seem slightly higher in some instances is of course, Australia’s exciting new GST. The long-term benefits of taxation reform far outweigh the relatively minor inconvenience of paying $6.50 for a cup of coffee. If you are with a visitor from overseas in a traffic jam in Sydney, you are to say, "This is very unusual. A truck must have tipped over". If it rains during the period September 15 to October 1, say "Goodness me, how tremendous. A benediction for Australia’s rich farmlands". Of course, if it hails, go inside because, obviously, you might get killed. The Aboriginal population in Australia is a happy and largely nomadic people and while we are deeply committed to the improvement of their desperate condition... they are perfectly well. You might like to mention Cathy Freeman – they’ve probably heard of her. The name of the man who built the hundred-metre track is Mr Jim Wilson of ACME Construction. He has absolutely nothing to do with this organisation. He’s only ever been here the one time.

Gina Riley: And we don’t think anyone saw him.

John Clarke: He also, incidentally, designed and built the triathlon track, a range of very high-quality ticketing machines, the main runway at Sydney Airport and lanes four and five of the Olympic swimming pools. If you are asked who is paying for these Olympic Games you are to say, "No speeka di Inglish". If attending Olympic events, visitors should be advised to eat before leaving home - that one’s quite important - and if attending the swimming, visitors should be advised to take a very powerful telescope and maybe a small amount of oxygen if they’re sitting above about row F. The minister’s name is Mr Michael Knight. Mr Michael Knight. Beach Volleyball is not simply a game of volleyball played on a beach. It is a game of volleyball best played in a very large neo-Hitler construction which people can’t get into without paying and is built on an area that used to be a beach. That about covers it. Good luck. Bat on.

Staff Member: What do the IOC actually do?

Gina Riley: Well, as I’ve just said, they select the city for the Games.

Staff Member: And how do they do that?

Gina Riley: Well, they travel around the world for many years looking at places where the Olympics might be held.

John Clarke: They’d be in that in a minute wouldn’t they, the media? Planeload of dedicated Australian journalists. A few photographers. A couple of drug and alcohol counsellors.

Gina Riley: We were flying in the face of one of the basic rules of food consumption.

Bryan Dawe: Which one?

Gina Riley: "Never eat in a Scottish restaurant."

Gina Riley: [On telephone] Hello. How would your radio show like exclusive coverage of one entire leg of the Olympic torch relay? No, there would be no fee involved. No. [Shouting] Because we haven’t got any money!

Ambassador Berger: Much could be made in achieving this end if the government were to address the deep wrongs inflicted on the indigenous population and attempt to achieve true reconciliation with the Aboriginal peoples.

John Clarke: Yes. When?

Ambassador Berger: I hope the Games go ahead as planned.

John Clarke: Yes. Pretty soon...

John Clarke: They’re concerned that Australia’s treatment of its Aboriginal people is... you know.

John Clarke: I’m delighted to hear it, Gina. Kofi Annan can’t work it out; the international court at The Hague reckon it’s beyond their jurisdiction. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you’ve bowled it over.

John Howard: Good evening. My name is John Howard and I’m speaking to you from Sydney, Australia, host-city of the year 2000 Olympic Games. At this important time and in an atmosphere of international goodwill and national pride, we here in Australia, all of us, would like to make a statement before all nations. Australia, like many countries in the New World, is intensely proud of what it has achieved in the past 200 years. We have a vibrant and resourceful people. We share a freedom born in the abundance of nature, the richness of the earth, the bounty of the sea. We are the world’s biggest island. We have the world’s longest coastline. We have more animal species than any other country. Two-thirds of the world’s birds species are native to Australia. We are one of the few countries on earth with our own sky. We are a fabric woven of many colours and it’s this that gives us our strength. However, these achievements have come at great cost. We have been here for 200 years, but before that there was a people living here. For over 40,000 years they lived in perfect balance with the land. There were many Aboriginal nations, just as there were many Indian nations in North America and across Canada, as there were many Maori tribes in New Zealand, and Incan and Mayan peoples in South America. These indigenous Australians lived in areas as different from one another as Scotland is from Ethiopia. They lived in an area the size of Western Europe. They didn’t even share a common language. Yet, they had their own laws, their own beliefs, their own ways of understanding. We destroyed this world. We often didn’t mean to do it. Our forebears, fighting to establish themselves in what they saw as a harsh environment, were creating a national economy. But the Aboriginal world was decimated. A pattern of disease and dispossession was established. Alcohol was introduced. Social and racial differences were allowed to become fault-lines. Aboriginal families were broken up. Sadly, Aboriginal health and education are responsibilities we have yet to address successfully. I speak for all Australians in expressing a profound sorrow to the Aboriginal people. I am sorry. We are sorry. Let the world know and understand that it is with this sorrow, that we as a nation will grow and seek a better, a fairer and a wiser future. Thank you.

John Clarke: Oh, you won’t get a question about sport, Gina. No chance of that. Very old hat, sport. No-one will ask you about that. Every Olympics has got sport. The thing that differentiates the Australian Olympics, Gina, is that it’s going to be paid for by Australians.

[Repeated line]

Various characters: Good news!

Bryan Dawe: All of those trees we planted were uprooted and blown away in last week’s hailstorm.

John Clarke: I take it you’re not telling me this in order to demonstrate the awesome power of nature.

John Clarke: Well, who will be announcing we're not going to replant the trees , he asked rhetorically?

Tim Schwerdt: The Minister wants you at his office.

John Clarke: Ah!

Tim Schwerdt: Now.

John Clarke: Did he specify if I was to bring my own sword or will I be falling on one provided by the Minister?

[After angrily reversing his car into the garage wall]

John Clarke: Now why would you put a wall in there?

John Clarke: Well, this will be a moment of excitement. I’ve never actually met the Minister before. I've only ever seen him on television. Normally just his smile and maybe a tiny bit of his lawyer.

John Clarke: Good to know, Bill, that the IOC is well off for fully functioning photocopying machines. Photocopying whatever it is you photocopy up there. What is it? The location of stolen bullion, is it? Nazi escape routes? Something like that?

John Clarke: Do you bother naming the female children?

Bill Ten Eyck: I’d love to move, but not for a million dollars.

John Clarke: Two million dollars perhaps, Bill?

Nicholas Bell: And here’s that brief for the press conference for the launch of Australia’s Games tomorrow. You’ve got a rehearsal first thing in the morning.

John Clarke: Rehearsal?

Nicholas Bell: The Channel Seven commentary team are going to be there dressed up as Shagger, Australia’s Gumnut Kangaroo.

John Clarke: All of them?

Nicholas Bell: I think so.

John Clarke: Wilko?

Nicholas Bell: Wilko’s its arse, I think.

Bill Ten Eyck: Beer, mate?

John Clarke: One perishingly cold, thanks.

[Bill doesn't move]

John Clarke: Yes, that’s the other thing, of course. I could get it myself.

Gina Riley: Well, Bill’s safely off and I, for one, am very, very sad to see him go.

John Clarke: Yes, a commonly held view as it happens, Gina. For example, Detective Conroy here of the Fraud Squad is also a little dewy-eyed at Bill’s tragic departure, given that she and most of the international police force have been looking for Bill for quite some time.